Ensure that the project has an executive-level sponsor…, skills, time and desire to play an active role in the project and to remove any internal organizational obstacles that come up.

Get a written statement of the objectives and the criteria for success; The objectives should be written and widely shared..If you have no goals you are sure to achieve them

Manage client expectations…Build no less than needed to meet your goals, and no more!

Build a dedicated and qualified team. Train and reward team members, and continually instill with a sense of team spirit…The Quality and robustness of the project refect what the team put into it, and what gets put into them…Garbage in, Garbage out. letting them kept their jobs jobs is not a reward, it’s teaching how much you value them.

Develop risk assessment and risk-reduction strategies..a rigorous examination of all the things that can go wrong during the project and what to do when they do — or how to avoid them entirely…Plan for risk or risk your planing

Streamlined management processes and financial controls… to pay for quality deliverables at all times….You cannot cut corners without leaving some out, be sure what remains adds value and furthers goals.

Discourage office politics…The bigger the office the bigger the politics, and the bigger the executive-level sponsor you need to bang heads

Learn from past mistakes — either your own or someone else’s. Learning from the past, or the present is always cheaper than learning in the future…Ian’s Law of Learning Inflation

And remember: The schedule is not the project! (when did I get so Cynical?)